My Movies You May Have Missed (@MYMHM) buddies reviewed one of my favorite movies to watch and laugh at: Noises Off.

Congratulations to @TheWebFiles for their Clicker Award Win as “Best Web Original Non Fiction Show” and to @SPWrite for her series Life With Kat & McKay qualifying as a Finalist in the “Best Web Original Comedy” category.

Web find: BJ Fletcher, Private Eye — very funny, very gay, very Canadian detective series — one of the characters is named Georgia Drew so that might tell you how much fun creator Regan Latimer has with all your favorite detective cliches/memories while bringing something very fresh + funny to the web series world. Plus, I finally get to work a long lost Lois Lane reference into a blog entry since George, the loyal sidekick, is going to journalism school to be an investigative journalist like LL. Great cast, great fun, watch it.

This was going to continue into a discussion of the differences between the YouTube, web series and indie film world from my experiences with each, but I’m saving that for another day when it’s not 1:33 a.m. Good night all.

Martin Scorsese talks about how he works, what movies inspire him and how he was treated when he was trying to learn the craft of movies.

Kate Valk describes the interesting and masked approach The Wooster Group takes to theatre as they develop performances.

Peter Aspden has been knocking out excellent columns. This week he talks to Martha Wainwright about interpreting Edith Piaf, Wainwright’s musical family and how she maintains her individual drift.

Several weeks ago (yes, I still have a pile of newspapers I’m working through), Peter Aspden wrote aboutPatti Smith now, and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe then. I remember seeing “The Perfect Moment” Mapplethorpe exhibit – there was a clarity and an aggression that made them more vivid than any other photos I’d seen to that point. I think that’s when I realized photography could be art.

*Financial Times, my current newspaper of choice.

What I have been reading…comic books (see previous entry) and Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistlestop Cafe. I had forgotten all the details and characters and eras Fannie Flagg worked into her marvel of a town and humanity tour. If you haven’t read it yet, do!

And on the comic note: DC’s Wednesday Comics finishes off with a flair. Hawkman + (surprisingly Supergirl) get my votes for best use of format. More in depth review later. Start the next one off with Hawkman/Supergirl team up, give Aquaman his own page, the Legion of course, The Question, and hmmmm, I’ll have to think about the rest.

In the can I pick ‘em or what category: Movie You May Have Missed have done me a huge favor and reminded me what the title is of the time travel movie I had forgotten the title of soon after I read its excellent review (at the time, I was reading the Wall Street Journal). I kept trying to make it Pi, a totally different movie, but no, it’s Primer. Here’s their review.

And continuing, The Web Files is still turning out excellent, entertaining and informative episodes. Picked up some pointers from their interview (and am trying out Tube Mogul for Blink Kitty Love) with Tim Street of French Maid TV, yes, French Maid TV and am looking forward to the launch of first episode of the bringing back the 80’s w/ a sci fi flair, The Cabonauts (The Web Files #15).

TV reviews: still missing Warehouse 13, the upcoming 3 part Wizards of Waverly place, Chronicles of Moises looks like fun, not that thrilled with iCarly, True Jackson solid, buy the Jonas DVD because “Cold Shoulder” has the funniest music video bit ever in honor of Scandanavia. Speaking of The Jonas Brothers, have you seen “Bounce?” So this is what rock stars really do to stave off boredom.

Anything else…hmmm, there’s a new Blink Kitty Love in the universe, it’s Monday so Big Bang Theory Night (yes, Penny + Leonard dating does work + it is funny; not so sure about Sheldon + Raj working together).

And on a social conscience note, remember to vote. It matters. And here’s hoping that the Yes votes on Proposition #71 in Washington and the No votes on Question 1 in Maine prevail. You can make a difference. I did not participate in the latest March on Washington, but one of my Twitter peeps sent out an “Every right for every resident” quote and I think that sums it up well.

And I just remembered — spent the weekend w/ Madonna – or at least Madonna references. Rolling Stone has been mysteriously arriving for the past month and this is the first week I enjoyed reading it. Nice Madonna interview. And then she popped up in the 80’s in NYC photo gallery accompanying an interview w/ Village Voice photo columnist Amy Arbus. So now, I’ve convinced Gayle that we need to watch Shanghai Surprise — did you know George Harrison did the music.

Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues in a wordle. I like to limit my political controversy + ranting exposure to election periods, but it looks like we’re in for a full four years. So perhaps it’s time to pay attention to some of what the Founding Fathers have left us. I suggest a strong dose of tranquility for everyone. And throw in some tolerance, darn it, even though it’s not listed.

Jimmy Carter is a courageous man and a former president setting a great example for everyone. His suggestion that racism may be part of the irrational healthcare debate is a point to consider. I am very tired of people thinking politics and government is a place to pick sides and behave like ill mannered sports fans.

Fun stuff, as promised: Warehouse 13 — watch, darn it. Here’s a spoiler free review of the last two episodes from the folks at io9. SyFy’s having an all day marathon next Tuesday, September 22nd, starting w/ the pilot at 9 a.m. At least watch Duped at 5 p.m. Incredible directing, solid writing, excellent performances, real suspense and just a touch of disco fun. Claudia is becoming one of my favorite TV characters ever so I’m really hoping she isn’t the quisling. Warehouse 13 has already been picked up for a second season + it would be GREAT if they don’t fall into the Eureka trap and have a complete tonal change for the second go round. I can take some more suspense, but PLEASE leave in the quirk and the fun. And if Claudia actually is developing a minor Myka crush, bonus points.

Here’s a fun commuter trains of thought graphic my friend Denise linked to on Facebook.

And a lovely piece of music for a slightly overcast day that bestows mellow happiness and memories of Fred Astaire.

And because, it’s fun + wacky…introducing a potential new celebrity: The Spork, who may or not get his/her/its own shirt this weekend.

Oh, and I have a bunch of FT links in my head + scattered across my desk that need to be cleared out, but for right now, props to Sarah Hemming for an excellent review of Judgement Day and an interesting interview with Rupert Goold.

Hope to catch up some more on the weekend (+ watch Adventureland, which is sitting in its red NetFlix envelope on top of the TV). The Informant looks funny — Matt Damon earned a spot on my favorite funny movie cameo list with Eurotrip , but I’m saving up for SPX next weekend.

Merchant of Venice blurb for the season brochure (then I stop thinking about it for several months):

Merchant of Venice follows Portia, another of Shakespeare’s inimitable heroines, as she makes her way through an obstacle course of money and marriage. One of Shakespeare’s most misunderstood comedies? Or the cruelest? See for yourself.

An excerpt from my Blink Kitty Love Animator’s Journal:

So many people cite Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, the team at Disney as early animation influences; not me. With Blink Kitty Love, you put Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scooby Doo and Josie and the Pussycats in a blender, press mince and here we are, having a blast + burning a hole in our Wacom tablet.

Read the rest at the Blink Kitty Love blog.

El Tigre won 4 Daytime Emmys…congratulations + to celebrate, here’s a fan made mashup trailer of High School Musical 3 + El Tigre.

FT’s Vanessa Friedman on the fashion industry making itself accessible to the film industry.

Peter Aspden on The Beatles, their digitally remastered back catalogue + a lack of originality in contemporary musical endeavors.

The Steven Spielberg + Peter Jackson Tintin movie coming to a theatre near you Christmas 2011.

And I think that’s enough for tonight *yawn*..wait, you must watch Warehouse 13. It’s smart, funny, well acted, sharply written, surprising and suspenseful…yes, many science fiction stories have the same seeds, but W-13 lets them grow in interesting + intricate ways. Last week’s Alice in Wonderland take was amazing — you can probably catch it next Tuesday at 7.

And yes, it would be nice if Claudia turned out to be gay…

And on that note, a shout out to the Outer Alliance (@nicolaz is a member + my source for this) and the GLBT Bookshelf (@yuricon the source for this one); people are banding together to get lgbt speculative fiction + writing out there. Click through if you’re interested in finding out how/why.

Good night; sleep well.

Picked up Captain America #600, my interest piqued by rumors that they were going to bring him back. Killing Cap upset me — although, it’s comic books; it’s what happens. If you want a character with a storyline that never aggravates or annoys you, write your own comic/novel/cartoon. But that might not be a guarantee either.

Cap is all about triumph of human spirit and #600, which he doesn’t appear in is chock full of it in the good tear up a little and feel better about humanity sort of way. It’s a journey through how people feel about Cap’s legacy and Steve Rogers while Sharon Carter tracks down a rumor he might not be totally gone.

I’ve signed on for the Captain America trip, adding the book and the Reborn miniseries to my pull list. The comic book guy spent five minutes raving about Ed Brubaker’s writing and totally blanked when I mentioned my favorite Cap story arc, “Man Without A Country” drawn by Ron Garney. Garney’s Cap was iconic, a little cartoony (which I like) but solid and real — exactly like Cap should be. And Mark Waid’s strong stories gave Garney and Cap a springboard for excellent comics.

What else did I pick up? Jersey Gods, which is up to Issue #5 and fizzled somewhere in the middle of #3. Keeping your two main characters worlds and galaxies apart is not a ticket to keeping me interested. It turned from a potentially sharp love story to a plodding New Gods riff…Boo. New Jersey deserves better.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is leaving my pull list soon. It’s become a dusty visit to some little known corner of the DC heroverse each issue without any wit or humor.

Batwoman, aka Detective Comics #854 with the Question II back of the book story rocked. Rucka’s a good writer (see Whiteout comments) — speaking of Whiteout artist Steve Lieber was robbed and doesn’t have the resources to promote his latest book, Underground. But back to Detective, whose artist is J.H. Williams III, whose fight scenes are kick ass wonders — he makes the Kate Kane in the Batwoman costume pages have a different, more stylized feel than the out of costume pages. Don’t like the tan background motif to the non action pages, but it’s a small quibble. Looking forward to the next issue. The Renee Montoya/Question II story is just the kick off without enough time to develop anything. I am trying to track down (actually I’ve sicced my brother on it — he’s the comic shopping expert in the family) the Gotham Central issues (6-10) where Montoya was outed and kidnapped by Two Face.

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers — yes, Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers…I always liked Lockjaw’s appearances with the Inhumans and there’s a frog in a Thor costume (let’s see Branagh work that into the movie). Pet Avengers was fun, is only four issues and I’ll keep reading it. I seem to be on a Marvel kick.

But then there’s Phonogram, which is beautiful. Jamie McKelvie amazes me. Characters and colors make up for lack of background in the mostly nightclub interiors. The Singles Club is an interesting collection of characters — the first one pulled me in, the second one I couldn’t find (Joe’s on it, I hope) and the third was still beautiful and cryptic…I need to put all the music the creators list in a last.fm station.

Almost forgot Kansas, which is a Smallville reference. Now, Superman and Captain America are two heroes I think of as counterparts of each other — even though Superman adds yellow to the red and blue motif. Read MTV Splashpage interview excerpt with Justin Hartley and was somewhat disheartened at the news that he thinks the series could continue onto infinity when I think it lost it long ago.

What would get me back; humor, Lois, The Legion, Maggie Sawyer, moving Clark off stall, not having killed James Olsen, the Justice League rocking out, MUSIC — I hear songs from episodes of Smallville on last.fm and lament the loss of so many music style and wit points.

My favorite episodes;

The Season 4 openers, Crusade and Gone, where Lois shows up…excellent introduction of a great character. Actually, you can easily include the third and fourth episode — Facade and Devoted; the Lois and Clark interaction promises a sparking relationship to follow. Season 4, Episode 13, with Lois at Metropolis U is one of our favorites, with Clark demonstrating how essential Lois is becoming to him. Tom Welling does an excellent job of looking at Lois differently than any other woman — it’s a fascinating mix of exasperation, interest and concern.

Season 5, Episode 6, Exposed, is my favorite episode and not just because of the Lois pole dance (but oh, the lovely irony of Lois twirling to “Don’t Cha (Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot like Me).” Maggie Sawyer makes an appearance and I had hopes that this would be the first step on the path of Lois and Clark saving the universe together.

The Season 6 Lois/Green Arrow story line held my interest, but the show doesn’t want to commit to Lois and Clark and they seem to have lost their grip on her character and any hope that she and Clark would actually make a compelling couple, whether romantic or colleagues.

Now, I think Tom Welling does an excellent job, as does Erica Durance, Alison Mack, et al…but their talents are WASTED on the emotional, ill plotted morass Smallville has turned itself into — VOLUNTARILY!

And yet, no second season of The Middleman. Bah.

Happy Fourth of July. Exercise your first amendments rights and actually comment, darn it. And don’t blow yourselves up.

Personal notes: instrumental jazz drives me crazy after a bit, I prefer lyrics mixed in with my melodies; the little brother acquired a Hewlett Packard tower of some sort so we’re back to low level World of Warcrafting again while we work off the rust, and I really want to go on vacation. But first, I want to turn a kick ass Taming of The Shrew out into the world. We’ll see if the buzz/zone/focus survives Thursday and the return of the 12 and under crowd.

Twitter’s been fun(and yes, there is some irony underlying there); there’s all the #iranelection stuff and that somehow led to the gay activism #lgbt stuff and sparks occasionally fly off my twitterfeed these days, but they are directed at the political workings of the universe and not causing glitches in my internal mental circuits (NOTE: I need to subscribe to last.fm so I don’t get the have you been eaten by a bear graphic so often as I listen to Radio FlashCatFlash in the background. Flash is an ardent consumer of media — listener of last.fm, chewer of Entertainment Weekly.) Although, I did try follow an agent for awhile — I occasionally try to find new + interesting Twitter peeps, but it seems like the people on the inside of the “I’ve been published/I know the system/I’m not a Visigoth” wall shrink away from and patronize the strivers/hopers/schemers who think writing leads to JK Rowlings levels of success and billions and who believe that there’s an easy solution and that someone would actually tell them if there was. And that’s just tiring — the patronization: there is no easy solution; there’s only your own tolerance level for continuing to try. I suppose, to sympathize with the gatekeepers, smug or otherwise, that it’s also tiring getting harassed by people who want to be published. But I just don’t like the industries built up to take money/hope/energy from people with writing/moviemaking/painting/crafting/creating dreams. And who make little hoops for people to jump through rather than respecting honest effort. And the people who control access to the gates with assured superiority really tick me off – and no, I’m not sure that this agent was one of that breed, but it did trigger some memories. And yes, somewhere back in the day, my ancestors painted themselves blue and did things like tear down the towers of Rome. But then we learned to read the books and saved the civilization we once helped burn. And now we’re writing the blogs and drawing the webcomics and digitizing the viral videos.

Oh well, apparently, Twitter related mental glitches/rants still occur. But on a personal note, two of my WORST auditionees ever, who had the most trouble with the language, had turned into two of the MOST amazing and dedicated Shakespeareans by the time they stopped having time to spend their summers touring Shakespeare. Because they worked their asses off, they learned, they tried and I gave them opportunities and challenges. I am so thankful I took them up on their enthusiasm and bravery instead of dismissing their stumbling over the language. And I am so grateful it is a lesson I learned the FIRST time I directed Shakespeare. I remind myself of it before every audition.

Have been having a tweetversation about Henry James — someone’s reading “Turn of The Screw” and I suggested “Beast in The Jungle.” So I went looking for it to make sure that was the story I was talking about and found excerpts and suddenly thought, OMG, that’s what influenced Jane and Sally’s relationship in In The Bleak December. Wow. Amazing how what you’ve read and only remember the experience of gets threaded into what you write. And here I thought it was mainly Persuasion and Bellwether and Topsy Turvy mixed. Maybe the sequel could stand to be influenced by Taming of The Shrew. I can just see Jane grumbling “To me she’s married, not unto my clothes.” Now, there’s a place to start.

Speaking of married, we went to see The Proposal and were not impressed. No one seems to do dialogue anymore — or even put the stars in the same shot. you have faces, you have names, why worry about chemistry, communication, plot, script, the fast pace of banter…why not just linger on movie star faces. Oy. I watched Kissing Jessica Stein to recover my love of movies — now there’s a movie with some great conversations.

Now, so as not to be responsible for a total rant fest, I have hopes of (500) Days of Summer, which is apparently non linear. And I am still enjoying piecing together the upcoming Scott Pilgrim movies from Edgar Wright’s daily photos. And there’s the hope that Bandslam will actually rock. Must see Hot Fuzz sometime; NetFlix is becoming a must fit into the budget.

Anyway, thanks for listening; keep cool, get some sleep and some sun. And brush up your Shakespeare; it’s fun, darn it.

NB: Apparently, I need to have been reading the JLA…Milestone characters including Donner and Blitzen appeared in #27. Time to have a talk with my comic guy. I really need to pay more attention to my Previews.

And Dwayne McDuffie, one of the Milestone founders, was just fired as the Justice League’s writer.

MTV Splashpage responded with a cool post about 5 out and proud gay superheroes who might weigh in against Proposition 8. Made me want to spend more time reading up on Gothamites other than the Caped Crusader (The Question II + Batwoman to be specific. Greg Rucka’s original Whiteout is one of my favorite mini series — movie actually coming out in September — and he’ll be writing Batwoman.)

Happy Memorial Day…that was all over Twitter this morning, along with plans for parades and barbecues and Gomez stranded in Cleveland with nothing to do and everything closed (if you believe their Twitter feed, they resorted to cannabilism)…but happy? Proud, maybe; perhaps solemn, but happy? I almost joined the military on two separate occasions — before college and after — but there was the possibility of dating Gayle vs. language school in Monterry and you’ll have to lie just doesn’t work for me. I knew people who led double lives to be in the military and it was a terrible and stupid strain. Before college, when I was being recruited for and actively considering a NROTC scholarship, I decided that since I didn’t know what I wanted to do for four years in college, committing myself for five years after was a mistake. And watching friends get up at 5 a.m. and earlier to do PT did nothing to convince me I’d made a mistake.

Gayle has some cousins and other relatives in the military and all have served in active war zones and it is a whole and constant family worry event. So a toast to all those who have and continue to serve.

Towel Day was a new one — it’s a celebration of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Someone picked a day two weeks after his death and everyone’s supposed to carry a towel. So now you know.

My birthday…well, I have a friend with the same birthday so we borrowed his cookout and had a blast playing Mah Johg. Fun. And it started off with my favorite Buffy* episode over breakfast. Oh, and cool old school Superman t-shirt and the rest of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels for presents, so score several for the birthday hippo.

Tomorrow, #tamingshakespeare aka SHREW! auditions; tonight, RadioFlashCat and trying to finish a new Blink Kitty Love. Flash has had a rough weekend — two seizures Saturday. She hates summer weather and is really missing Pongo. But she likes Aberdeen.

And no, we didn’t make it to Night At The Museum. We rented Made of Honor — which was better than I expected, although as always romantic comedy plots hard to find. Great to see Sydney Pollack though — really must have a Tootsie night sometime.

*Twitter + internet rumor has it there may be another Buffy big screen feature sans Whedon and all the Buffy folks we know. And my favorite Buffy episode, well, that’s a conversation that’ll take an entire post. But there is a clue in this one.